The End of the UN’s Political Grip and a Second Wind for Somali Civil Society

By Mohamed Ibrahimrashid

The UN’s political mission in Somalia has changed names several times over the past three decades. For many Somalis, however, that presence had a more familiar label, “Gaalo,” a colloquial term commonly used for Westerners. On 31 October 2026, its latest incarnation, the United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS), completed its transition and ceased operations. By then, the mission had become a powerful actor in Somali politics, with interventions that often crossed the line from assistance into interference.

The UN’s involvement in Somalia began with UNOSOM I in 1992, amid civil war following the ousting of dictator Siad Barre by clan-based armed factions. Some of these factions later splintered into increasingly predatory armed groups, turning against one another and deepening the country’s insecurity. The UN operation soon expanded into a much larger military intervention after the Security Council authorized the US-led Unified Task Force (UNITAF), known in Washington as Operation Restore Hope.

The Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993, which left American soldiers dead and inflicted a gruesome toll on Somalis, became a turning point. Under mounting domestic political pressure, the United States withdrew its forces in 1994, followed by the remaining UN troops the following year.

Somalia’s experience offered a difficult lesson. Violence could not be defeated by more violence. But the end of the military intervention did not mean the end of the UN’s involvement.

Established in April 1995 and initially based in Nairobi, the United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) became the UN’s political successor. It remained involved in Somali political affairs as successive governments came and went, political settlements shifted and competing centers of authority emerged. That political presence proved considerably harder to dislodge.

Over the years, the mission gradually moved from the margins towards the center of Somalia’s political affairs. At one point, its government counterpart was little more than a divisional director in the Ministry of Planning. By December 2015, when Nicholas Kay’s tenure came to an end, the farewell had climbed several rungs of protocol. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud himself attended the reception, held at a Mogadishu hotel.

The mission played a role in political agreements and the 2012 transition. As its influence grew, however, the distinction between supporting Somalia’s political process and intervening in its domestic affairs became increasingly blurred.

The leadership of the UN’s political intervention in Somalia also followed a revealing pattern during the later UNSOM years. British diplomats Nicholas Kay and Michael Keating successively headed the mission before South African Nicholas Haysom was appointed in 2018. He was followed by American diplomat James Swan and, later, Britain’s Catriona Laing. Although earlier UNPOS leadership included diplomats from Mauritania and Tanzania, the later succession raised a question about the political weight behind the mission’s intervention.

In January 2019, the Somali government declared Haysom persona non grata and ordered him to leave following his intervention over the arrest of former Al-Shabaab figure Mukhtar Robow and the Baidoa protests. His expulsion did not necessarily mean he was a worse envoy than his predecessors. Rather, it exposed how readily Mogadishu could act against an envoy without the diplomatic weight of Washington or London behind him.

The mission’s political engagement also generated mistrust over its recruitment and information-gathering practices. Questions arose over its preference for locally recruited Somali personnel without sufficiently demonstrated expertise in political affairs and international law, while Somali professionals with relevant academic and professional qualifications appeared to receive less consideration. Some of these local employees were relied upon to gather and relay information about their country’s political affairs and providing access to domestic political networks.

The same information-gathering networks were reportedly used to investigate the backgrounds of senior Somali officials, including members of the Cabinet, with particular attention to their academic credentials. Apparently, even the qualifications of those running the country could become a matter of international political interest.

Somali civil society organizations had spent years working on reconciliation, community mobilization, peacebuilding and essential social services, often with limited resources. Their local knowledge, public trust and sustained presence also made them an important source of independent scrutiny of government.

Despite this local standing, they rarely enjoyed influence comparable to that of the UN political mission. Backed by donor resources and diplomatic access, the mission’s assessments often carried greater weight in national affairs than the views of locally rooted organizations. Its growing political influence increasingly sidelined local accountability mechanisms, weakening civil society’s capacity to scrutinize government and hold public officials accountable.

The mission’s so-called reconciliation and state-building agenda increasingly brought individuals and groups associated with armed violence into political processes as recognized actors and stakeholders. While engaging former combatants can be necessary to end conflict, political inclusion should not come at the expense of accountability for past abuses. Although the mission had no prosecutorial authority, its mandate included promoting human rights, supporting the rule of law and reporting violations. In practice, political accommodation often received greater attention than accountability for those who had suffered from violence.

Some politicians who now lament the disappearance of the UN political office valued its presence not for its so-called mediation role, but as an external platform through which to challenge the federal government and constrain President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s increasingly aggressive concentration of political power. Yet political memory can be remarkably short. Those now mourning the mission’s departure seem to have forgotten its less accommodating moments. On 13 September 2018, Michael Keating, addressing the UN Security Council, offered a pointed assessment of Somalia’s opposition, declaring that “the concept of patriotic opposition is weak.”

For civil society, however, the closure offers an opportunity to reclaim its influence and restore its prominent role in Somali political affairs.

Criticism of UN funding has traditionally included the striking claim that only $50 of every $1,000 spent reaches its intended purpose. Heavily fortified gates, a purpose-built terminal and even air-conditioned toilets offered a visible measure of the resources at the mission’s disposal. What those resources ultimately delivered for Somalia was far less evident.

Whatever contributions the UN made to Somalia’s political transition, three decades of engagement cannot be judged solely by the so-called agreements brokered and institutions established. The resources invested, the consequences of earlier interventions and the mission’s relationship with Somali political institutions and civil society remain pieces of an unresolved puzzle. Its political legacy must ultimately be measured against what it achieved, what it cost and what it left behind for Somalis